Joel 2.12-26 (Sixth Hour)

12Now therefore, says the Lord your God, turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with lamentation: 13and rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is merciful and compassionate, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy, and repents of evils. 14Who knows if he will return, and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat-offering and a drink-offering to the Lord your God? 15Sound the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, proclaim a solemn service: 16gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the infants at the breast: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. 17Between the porch and the altar let the priests that minister to the Lord weep, and say, Spare your people, O Lord, and give not your heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them, lest they should say among the heathen, Where is their God? 18But the Lord was jealous of his land, and spared his people. 19And the Lord answered and said to his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you⌃ shall be satisfied with them: and I will no longer make you a reproach among the Gentiles. 20And I will chase away from you the northern adversary, and will drive him away into a dry land, and I will sink his face in the former sea, and his back parts in the latter sea, and his ill savor shall come up, and his stink come up, because he has wrought great things. 21Be of good courage, O land; rejoice and be glad: for the Lord has done great things. 22Be of good courage, you⌃ beasts of the plain, for the plains of the wilderness have budded, for the trees have borne their fruit, the fig tree and the vine have yielded their strength. 23Rejoice then and be glad, you⌃ children of Sion, in the Lord your God: for he has given you food fully, and he will rain on you the early and the latter rain, as before. 24And the floors shall be filled with corn, and the presses shall overflow with wine and oil. 25And I will recompense you for the years which the locust, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, and the cankerworm have eaten, even my great army, which I sent against you. 26And you⌃ shall eat abundantly, and be satisfied, and shall praise the name of the Lord your God for the things which he has wrought wonderfully with you: and my people shall not be ashamed for ever.

Joel 3.12-21 (Vespers)

12Let them be aroused, let all the nations go up to the valley of Josaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the Gentiles round about. 13Bring forth the sickles, for the vintage is come: go in, tread the grapes, for the press is full: cause the vats to overflow; for their wickedness is multiplied. 14Noises have resounded in the valley of judgment: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of judgment. 15The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their light. 16And the Lord shall cry out of Sion, and shall utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heaven and the earth shall be shaken, but the Lord shall spare his people, and shall strengthen the children of Israel. 17And you⌃ shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwell in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall not pass through her anymore. 18And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the fountains of Juda shall flow with water, and a fountain shall go forth of the house of the Lord, and water the valley of flags. 19Egypt shall be a desolation, and Idumea shall be a desolate plain, because of the wrongs of the children of Juda, because they have shed righteous blood in their land. 20But Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to all generations. 21And I will make inquisition for their blood, and will by no means leave it unavenged: and the Lord shall dwell in Sion.

St Leo the Great, Pope of Rome

Pope Leo was one of the great bastions of Orthodoxy during the time of the monophysite heresy and its offshoots. ‘According to some, this Saint was born in Rome, but according to others in Tyrrenia (Tuscany), and was consecrated to the archiepiscopal throne of Rome in 440. In 448, when St Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople [also commemorated today], summoned Eutyches, an archimandrite in Constantinople, to give account for his teaching that there was only one nature in Christ after the Incarnation, Eutyches appealed to St Leo in Rome. After St Leo had carefully examined Eutyches’ teachings, he wrote an epistle to St Flavian, setting forth the Orthodox teaching of the person of Christ, and His two natures, and also counseling Flavian that, should Eutyches sincerely repent of his error, he should be received back with all good will. At the Council held in Ephesus in 449, which was presided over by Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria (and which Saint Leo, in a letter to the holy Empress Pulcheria in 451, was the first to call “The Robber Council”), Dioscorus, having military might behind him, did not allow Saint Leo’s epistle to Flavian to be read, although repeatedly asked to do so; even before the Robber Council was held, Dioscorus had uncanonically received the unrepentant Eutyches back into communion. Because Saint Leo had many cares in Rome owing to the wars of Attila the Hun and other barbarians, in 451 he sent four delegates to the Fourth Ecumenical Council, where 630 Fathers gathered in Chalcedon during the reign of Marcian, to condemn the teachings of Eutyches and those who supported him. Saint Leo’s epistle to Flavian was read at the Fourth Council, and was confirmed by the Holy Fathers as the Orthodox teaching on the incarnate Person of our Lord; it is also called the “Tome of Leo.” The Saint wrote many works in Latin; he reposed in 461.’(Great Horologion).

St Leo is remembered for saving Rome from conquest by Attila the Hun. When Attila drew near to Rome, preparing to pillage the city, St Leo went out to him in his episcopal vestments and enjoined him to turn back. For reasons unknown to worldly historians, the pitiless Attila with all his troops abandoned their attack and returned the way they had come.